It was supposed to be a quiet weekend.
Then a friend invited me to a birthday party for a friend of his. The party happened in a warehouse in Dallas, and started after dark. So after 8 hours of work and an art reception (complete with cheese, crackers, and polite congratulations to unknown fellow artists), I drove for two and half hours to spend several hours with complete strangers from a different community.
Walking in the door, greetings and introductions happened quickly. The walls, painted to look more complex and rich than the concrete block they were, felt aged and solid. I followed my friend, the party inviter, through the winding doorways to the buffet. Plates filled with finger foods, burgers, tacos before we grabbed Cokes and sat to talk. I was welcomed.
Only knowing two people in the gathering of 50, it could have been a dragging night of jaggedly ended random comments. Or worse, awkward silence punctuated with piped in music. Hours wandered past easily, conversation flowed.
A multi-rainbow layered, volcano-topped cake disappeared in chunks and contented grunts.
My friend ended up staying to help clean up; I fell asleep around 3 but still ended up being given beer bread to take home.
Saturday, a Facebook friend had a book signing. How novel a concept, I thought, to go actually meet in meatspace someone I’d only known going on a few years in cyber. The bookstore was busy in peculiarly rhythmic spikes, with lines formed for the important things in life: coffee and help at the information desk.
A tight cluster of people rotated around the writer whose intense gaze rarely penetrated the shoulders of his people-bubble. Even knowing him through mutual real life friends, being interested in his book, and having a conversation starter wasn’t enough for me to register as a blip on his radar.
Moments dragged as I fiddled with mentally re-arranging my day. Trying to catch his eye or find a spot in the jumble of rotating devotees felt too much like scaling walls of a castle unwelcoming to outsiders.
I found other books to read, coffee to drink somewhere else. And spent my time breaking bread with a friend who knows me but likes spending time with me anyway.
Sunday found me in a rough part of Dallas, surrounded by more rows of strangers and a few pastors I thought I knew. A fiery redhead spoke of how fear begets scapegoating, scapegoating begets violence, violence begets retaliation, retaliation begets fear…
During the call to discipleship, a dark skinned man with prophet-sad eyes asked the young people to stand. He asked for one man aged 21 to stand before him, another 17 girl with a shy smile; then two 10 and 11, to stand behind them. He asked them to lay down, and he named them: Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, a nameless child lynched recently in a school playground.
He spoke softly in his deep voice, “we have more names than we do children here to represent them.”
Driving back home in an inky night, my eyes sought stars as the weekend's happenings swished in my head like a jar of shaken water. I thought about how small my life is, driving back and forth between where I want to be and where my mom needs me. All the paths I travel were paved by others, for which I give tanks, but rarely take the time to sincerely appreciate.
I don't know what it's like to be pulled over and be more scared than inconvenienced.
I don't know what it's like to be condemned by the color of my skin.
But I do know what it's like to be alone with pain and fear filling all the spaces; to not see tomorrow or hope or different anything because breathing through right now takes so much.
And into that leeching, wearing space, I can speak some light.
Then a friend invited me to a birthday party for a friend of his. The party happened in a warehouse in Dallas, and started after dark. So after 8 hours of work and an art reception (complete with cheese, crackers, and polite congratulations to unknown fellow artists), I drove for two and half hours to spend several hours with complete strangers from a different community.
Walking in the door, greetings and introductions happened quickly. The walls, painted to look more complex and rich than the concrete block they were, felt aged and solid. I followed my friend, the party inviter, through the winding doorways to the buffet. Plates filled with finger foods, burgers, tacos before we grabbed Cokes and sat to talk. I was welcomed.
Only knowing two people in the gathering of 50, it could have been a dragging night of jaggedly ended random comments. Or worse, awkward silence punctuated with piped in music. Hours wandered past easily, conversation flowed.
A multi-rainbow layered, volcano-topped cake disappeared in chunks and contented grunts.
My friend ended up staying to help clean up; I fell asleep around 3 but still ended up being given beer bread to take home.
Saturday, a Facebook friend had a book signing. How novel a concept, I thought, to go actually meet in meatspace someone I’d only known going on a few years in cyber. The bookstore was busy in peculiarly rhythmic spikes, with lines formed for the important things in life: coffee and help at the information desk.
A tight cluster of people rotated around the writer whose intense gaze rarely penetrated the shoulders of his people-bubble. Even knowing him through mutual real life friends, being interested in his book, and having a conversation starter wasn’t enough for me to register as a blip on his radar.
Moments dragged as I fiddled with mentally re-arranging my day. Trying to catch his eye or find a spot in the jumble of rotating devotees felt too much like scaling walls of a castle unwelcoming to outsiders.
I found other books to read, coffee to drink somewhere else. And spent my time breaking bread with a friend who knows me but likes spending time with me anyway.
Sunday found me in a rough part of Dallas, surrounded by more rows of strangers and a few pastors I thought I knew. A fiery redhead spoke of how fear begets scapegoating, scapegoating begets violence, violence begets retaliation, retaliation begets fear…
During the call to discipleship, a dark skinned man with prophet-sad eyes asked the young people to stand. He asked for one man aged 21 to stand before him, another 17 girl with a shy smile; then two 10 and 11, to stand behind them. He asked them to lay down, and he named them: Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, a nameless child lynched recently in a school playground.
He spoke softly in his deep voice, “we have more names than we do children here to represent them.”
Driving back home in an inky night, my eyes sought stars as the weekend's happenings swished in my head like a jar of shaken water. I thought about how small my life is, driving back and forth between where I want to be and where my mom needs me. All the paths I travel were paved by others, for which I give tanks, but rarely take the time to sincerely appreciate.
I don't know what it's like to be pulled over and be more scared than inconvenienced.
I don't know what it's like to be condemned by the color of my skin.
But I do know what it's like to be alone with pain and fear filling all the spaces; to not see tomorrow or hope or different anything because breathing through right now takes so much.
And into that leeching, wearing space, I can speak some light.
A light that thrives in the depths of darkness,blazes through murky bottoms.It cannot and will not be quenched.John 1:5, The Voice
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